Israeli-Hamas truce holds - for now

Friday

Nov 23, 2012 at 12:01 AMNov 23, 2012 at 11:58 AM

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - Hamas leaders and thousands of flag-waving supporters declared victory over Israel yesterday on Gaza's first day of calm under an Egyptian-brokered truce, as Israeli officials flew to Cairo for talks on easing a blockade on the battered Palestinian territory.

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — Hamas leaders and thousands of flag-waving supporters declared victory over Israel yesterday on Gaza’s first day of calm under an Egyptian-brokered truce, as Israeli officials flew to Cairo for talks on easing a blockade on the battered Palestinian territory.

Eight days of punishing Israeli airstrikes on Gaza and a barrage of Hamas rocket fire on Israel ended inconclusively. While Israel said it inflicted heavy damage on the militants, Gaza’s Hamas rulers said that Israel’s decision not to send in ground troops, as it had four years ago, was a sign of a new deterrent power.

“Resistance fighters changed the rules of the game with the occupation (Israel), upset its calculations,” Gaza Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas, who attended the rally, said later in a televised speech. “The option of invading Gaza after this victory is gone and will never return.”& amp; amp; amp; amp; amp; amp; amp; lt; /p>

At the same time, he urged Gaza fighters to respect the truce and to “guard this deal as long as Israel respects it.”

In Israel, some were grateful that quiet had been restored without a ground operation that could have cost the lives of more soldiers. Others — particularly those in southern Israel hit by rockets over the past 13 years — thought the operation was abandoned too quickly.

Thousands of Israeli soldiers who had been sent to the border during the fighting withdrew yesterday, the military said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the offensive’s aims of halting Gaza rocket fire and weakening Hamas were achieved. “I know there are citizens who were expecting a harsher response,” he said, adding that Israel is prepared to act if the cease-fire is violated.

In a development that could complicate cooperation on the cease-fire, Israel yesterday arrested an Israeli-Arab man connected to Hamas and Islamic Jihad on accusations that he planted a bomb on a bus in Tel Aviv that wounded 27 people in the hours before the agreement was announced on Wednesday, police said.

A Palestinian militant cell based in the West Bank village of Beit Lakiya dispatched the man, who lived in the village of Taybeh in Israel, to put a bomb on the bus, police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said. He then got off and called his handlers, who remotely detonated the explosive by calling the phone, Rosenfeld said.

“He admitted to carrying out the terrorist attack,” Rosenfeld said.

Attacks by Israeli Arabs are rare, though they have happened in the past. Nevertheless, the cease-fire raised hopes of a new era between Israel and Hamas.

A senior Israeli official and three aides arrived in Cairo late yesterday and were escorted to Egypt’s intelligence headquarters, said Egyptian airport officials, presumably to hammer out a deal that would include easing a blockade of the territory.

However, the vague language of the agreement and deep hostility between the combatants made it far from certain the bloodshed would end.Israel seeks an end to weapons smuggling into Gaza, while Hamas wants a complete lifting of the border blockade imposed in 2007.

Israeli officials also made it clear that their position had not warmed toward Hamas, which they view as a terror group aligned with their archenemy Iran and pledged to the destruction of the Jewish state.

“Without a doubt, Israel in the long run won’t be able to live with an Iranian proxy on its border,” Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman told Israel’s Channel 10. “As long as Hamas continues to incite against Israel and talk about destroying Israel, they are not a neighbor that we can suffer in the long run. But everything in its time.”

Israel launched the offensive on Nov. 14 to halt renewed rocket fire from Gaza, unleashing 1,500 airstrikes on Hamas-linked targets, while Hamas and other Gaza militants showered Israel with just as many rockets.

The eight days of fighting killed 161 Palestinians, including 71 civilians. Six Israelis were killed, and dozens of others were wounded.